Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/69

 For if we allow that one per mille only of the female infants born in China are smothered, which is much below the mark in the populous provinces and crowded cities, while it would exhibit a fearful estimate as the aggregate of murders, it would still be very inconsiderable as affecting a population, which amounts to several hundred millions, and which increases at the rate of three per cent, per annum. The object of the argument is to shew that the children being sacrificed to Mammon rather than to Moloch, the prevalence of the custom indicates the great poverty and overwhelming numbers of the people,—that there is a disproportion between the supply of food and the number of consumers,—that human life is cheaper than human provender,—and hence the conclusion, considering the fertility of the soil, that China is immensely populous.